


No Apologies

by mynameisfireheart



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Rescue, Throne of Glass, coffin reunion scene, rowaelin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 02:35:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15354333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisfireheart/pseuds/mynameisfireheart
Summary: The coffin rescue scene we're all waiting for.





	No Apologies

Aelin took a labored, wet breath. Her body shook with the effort, and she knew it was struggling to heal itself, using the power gifted to her by a woman whose face she no longer remembered. 

The man with the whip and the dark eyes had been particularly brutal today. He’d beaten her until her ribs broke, until she was coughing blood, until the Queen with the raven’s wing hair had told him to stop. They’d break her tomorrow, she said. Or the day after that. 

Only then had he placed her back inside her coffin, locking the manacles around her wrists, placing the heavy mask on her face. Aelin knew it would be the same tomorrow, only worse. He always, always found a way to make thing worse, to the point that being back in the coffin, with the iron stifling her magic, was a relief compared to his cruelty. 

But still, she refused to break. She wouldn’t tell them the secrets of her friends’ location, of the witches rising to power in the west, nor of the black haired king who now held the key to saving the world. She couldn’t remember their names, but she knew she had to protect them. 

Nor would she show her wildfire to the Queen. Not that she had much of it these days anyway. But she wouldn’t give the Queen the pleasure of dancing for her. 

They’d tried, early on, to put one of those wretched black things inside of her. But her blood, laced with fire, burned it up quickly. She was no one’s slave. 

She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius and she would not be afraid. 

No matter that she had all but forgotten what her three names even meant, or who she even was. But they were all she had. 

That and the knowledge of him. She didn’t remember his name, but could envision his face clear as day. Strong bones, a shock of white hair, and swirling black ink. And his smell. She smelled pine and snow in her dreams. Sometimes she imagined she could feel him tethered to her, their lives intertwined, forever connected. In her dreams, she pulled on that connection and he was there at the other end, pulling back. 

She guessed it didn’t matter if she knew his name anymore. She knew her own and that was all she needed to keep herself sane. 

****

The scent of pine and snow appeared in Aelin’s feverish dreams that night. It was stronger than it normally was, so strong that she could feel it wrapping around her. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. Who  _ was  _ he? And why did he continue to haunt her sleep with the promise of something better, something more?

In the dream, he was cutting down the fae male who held the whip, and then ice and snow wrapped around him and he plowed through guard after guard. The tang of immortal blood filled the air. 

Aelin snapped her eyes open. Around her, there was only darkness. 

****

Aelin awoke once more to the sound of something creaking above her and that same pine and snow smell in her nostrils. 

_ Oh gods, not already  _ she thought.  _ It can’t be morning already.  _ Her rib was nowhere close to healed and her breaths were still labored. 

She would not survive another day of torture. She felt a hint of flame flicker to life inside of her. Maybe she could go out with a bang instead. 

She opened her eyes and rather than daylight, saw the outline of a face above hers, the features unclear in the dim light.

“Fireheart.” The man’s voice cracked as he said it. 

The word tugged at something deep inside of her. What did he mean? Who was fireheart? And why did it make her throat close up, and her hands shake?

The man leaned closer, his face now close enough for her to see. She saw that it was  _ him _ . She inhaled, a gasping, coughing breath, and his essence filled her lungs. Tears formed in her eyes again.  _ Why _ was his face so dear to her? Why couldn’t she remember who he was to her? Why was he even here?

He reached forward and touched his palm to the iron mask on her face. It grew ice-cold in an instant, and then cracked. He flicked it apart with another gust of power, and Aelin felt the wind and air on her face for the first time in months. Then he moved onto the chains at her ankles and wrists. 

His arms came around her and he was hauling her out of the coffin, cradling her safely against him. 

She was  _ free _ . She crumpled in his arms, and buried her face in his neck and just breathed, letting that calming scent wash over her. For months his face and smell had been one of the few things that had given her hope and now he was here. 

“Fireheart,” he said, stroking her back. 

“Why do you call me that?” she mumbled. 

“It was what your mother called you. Aelin Fireheart.” His chest rumbled against her as he spoke. 

A flash of memory. A little girl running through a field of wildfires. A woman’s soft hands and comforting voice. 

“Tell me more,” she breathed. 

“I also call you Fireheart,” he said, his voice shaking. 

“And who are you to me?” 

“I am your carranam. Your bloodsworn warrior. I am your husband. And...I am your mate.”

At the word mate, something unlocked inside of her.  _ This  _ was the soul-deep connection she had felt inside of her, during those months locked away. 

Memories swept through her: a hawk circling over head as she gulped sour wine from a flask, the sharp feel of fangs in her neck, the sight of her blood on his lips. Running through the forest with him, laughing and playing. Punching him in the face, screaming at him. And then shivering in his bed, him fussing over her with tea and blankets. Fighting the blackness with him by her side, drawing on his magic as if it were her own soul. The feel of the blood oath taking root. 

And their first time together: the sand and sea and salty air. The cocoon of fire and wind that had wrapped around them. The feeling of being joined to him—

“Rowan,” she breathed. Finally,  _ finally  _ she remembered all that he was to her. 

“Fireheart,” he said again, his voice rough, tears pouring over his cheeks. 

“Buzzard,” she whispered, tilting her face up to look him in the eye. 

“I thought I might never find you.”

“I could feel you looking for me,” she said, realizing now what all of her dreams had meant, what his smell had meant. 

“I thought you were lost to me forever, that I would spend the rest of my days searching for you and never...never get to tell you that I knew, somewhere inside of me, I knew that you were my mate. The thought that you would never know how I treasured the bond between us, that you thought it might be a burden, when it is nothing but a blessing—

She cut him off with a light kiss, his lips soft and warm under hers that were rough and chapped. 

“No apologies. Never between us.” She stroked a hand through his hair, it was longer now, as was hers. He smiled at her, and she knew they were both thinking of the same moment, when she had told him she’d like to braid his hair. “I thought…I thought that I would never see you again. That day...on the beach, with Maeve, I went into that coffin thinking I would never come out.”

“You expected us to abandon you. You expected me to abandon you Aelin.” There was a harsh edge to his voice, as if he held it against her. 

“Forgive me?”

“No apologies,” he said, echoing her words. “Not between us.”

He kissed her, harder this time, until her mouth opened under his and she felt the depth of of their connection. 

She would not allow them to be separated again. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
